Comments on: Very bad news

By: TW Andrews

TW Andrews — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 16:16:56 +0000

But the LA Times is a great newspaper, well written and probing, with a wonderful tradition of “print it once and print it all” that has generated long, interesting, expensive stories that can help you understand a complicated issue or situation in one sitting.
I’d love to hear Mickey Kaus’ take on that statement.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 15:44:47 +0000

Lengthy, well-written articles are ideal for magazines where people do read them. Why is a change of venue for information unacceptable?

By: Brian Boru

Brian Boru — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 04:50:06 +0000

And the simultaneous demise of the NYTimes and Wapo leaves an increasing number of people dependent on the web for real news: Thanks, Al Gore.

By: Michael O'Hare

Michael O'Hare — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 21:18:17 +0000

Good question about the web ads. I’ve never consciously read one or clicked on one, and I’m pretty sure I at least note some newspaper ads. I think it has something to do with the small window: my whole screen is a third the size of a newspaper page, and the browser window is half of that. What’s the equivalent of a fullpage ad on a newspaper website? a popup that just makes you impatient?
Also good point about the classifieds, and it’s not just Craigslist, but also EBay, which has destroyed classified ads for chattels of almost every kind. I read somewhere that classifieds are the most profitable of all newspaper advertising, very tough on the bottom line to lose them.

By: KCinDC

KCinDC — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 21:12:27 +0000

Is there evidence of “the much greater difficulty advertisements have drawing attention on a computer screen than on a paper page” other than the flashing ads? I haven’t studied the topic, but I imagine that web advertisers are dissatisfied by click-through rates mainly because it’s easy to collect such statistics for web ads.
What percentage of people turning to a particular newspaper page immediately call a phone number given in an ad on that page? Surely the percentage is much, much smaller than web ad click-through rates, yet people did and still do buy newspaper ads, because that’s not the only measure of the effect of an ad.

By: KT

KT — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 17:45:28 +0000

Don’t forget the impact of Craigslist on classifieds, too. That’s been a huge impact.
Shame about the Times, it’s a better paper than the Chronicle, and so I wonder if we’ll be dependent on the Sacta Bee for best California reporting.